Mrs. Flinger: A work in progress

UPDATE TO Mrs. Flinger October 16, 2015

Because the Universe has a wicked sense of humor, after this delcaration, my blog threw up all over my last upgrade.

So I'm starting over using Craft. Turning 40 and kid entering Jr High next year, sometimes it's just time for a change. These archives will still exist in the way the last child goes off to college and their room is the same for 20 years,
but it's just time to move forward.

Trick or Treet, Smell my Feet Oct 31, 2008

Consider this my virtual door. Picture a few cob-webs with jack-o-lanterns glowing on the front porch and a fun spooky CD piping through the window.

Now, picture being REALLY terrified when John McCain and Sarah Palin answer the door.

BOO.

This year we’re more in to Halloween then ever before. We had a fantastic Halloween party thrown at Michelle’s house. We’re taking the kids trick or treating tonight with Laura. We’re all aglow with sugar rush.

It must be the age of my children, how they bring out the best frolicking of your inner youth. How they inspire you to eat a lollipop and run to chase them yelling ghost sounds. How they have the ability to make you laugh when they get in costume and act the part of their new persona.

So bring it on, Interweb!

Consider this my virtual door step and come knockin’. Bring me your links of your costume pictures. Let me oooh and aahhhh over your fun party atire and pass out some candy. I promise this candy is calorie free. But the oogling over your costume is totally genuine.

So show me what you got!

(And for fun, a picture of the same kiddos last year. It’s comforting how some things never change)

33 flavors and then some Oct 29, 2008

Most average days I just get by. I email, I make lunches, I make dinner, I do the dishes, I tuck covers in over tiny people. I try to remember a life before this and I can’t.

Maybe that’s ok.

So today I’m reflecting on 33 things. Thirty-three. A number that means nothing and so much at the same time.

1. I’m more like my mom than I ever thought I would become.
2. That’s not all that bad.
3. My daughter is more like me than I ever thought possible.
4. My son is the snuggler.
5. My husband is my best friend and that’s all I ever asked for in a marriage.
6. Even if we don’t always agree.
7. Or communicate well.
8. Birthdays are more than cakes and parties.
9. Birthdays are about reflecting and remembering.
10. About appreciating.
11. I don’t do that nearly enough.
12. I have wonderful friends.
13. An amazing family.
14. A great job.
15. Opportunity.
16. A future.
17. A past specked with friends and stories I’ll repeat to my daughter and son
18. I’m happy where I’m at now.
19. I would change very few things in the past 33 years.
20. And those things I’d change, I will start doing so now.
21. Simplify.
22. Appreciate.
23. Love openly.
24. Laugh.
25. Slow down.
26. Remember that kids are kids. Not tiny adults.
27. And maybe it’s ok to be more like them.
28. Eat well, live well, breathe.
29. Call my mother more often.
30. Kiss the kids with lipstick on.
31. Paint, Puzzle, Dance with them.
32. Have sex more often.
33. And don’t blog about it.

Thank you for everyone that makes my each year so special. To my mom who endured days (DAYS) of labor to birth me. To my daughter who reminds me I’m human. To my husband who loves me anyway. To my son who taught me the meaning of snuggle. To my sister who reminds me to be sane. To my friends here who help me get there. And to all of you who listen year after year.

I love you all. Here’s to 33. And then some.

The Challenge: Election 2008 Oct 22, 2008

Mr. Flinger and I have challenged each other to a duel. With the upcoming elections upon us (yes, yes, I know, we’re all very very tired of the talk) we decided to take the bull by the horn, so to speak. To grab the ass by the donkeysack, as it where.

Basically, we’re giving ourselves a college assignment and I hope you’ll join us.

The assignment is thus: (Always throw in “thus” when giving out assignments making yourself look smarter and more intelligent in the process.)

1. Pick five topics from both candidates that you feel strongly about. These MUST be able to be researched on the main ticket site and can be supported elsewhere. But basically, you’ll want to scour the McCain and Obama sites for topics and ideals.

2. Figure out where each candidate stands on those five topics.

3. Find supporting information.

4. Intelligently form a paragraph (or two) stating why you are choosing to vote the way you are.

Rules:

1. There is to be no name calling, no pushing in line, no grafiti of the parking lot.

2. Intelligent conversation only. Therefore, if you type in myspace language “U r a bitch because you r voting 4 McCain” we will point, laugh, and know you’re an idiot.

3. There are no winners. There are no losers.

4. I promise not to make us all sit together and sing “Kumbya Mylord” when this is over. But I do want to say that regardless of belief or personal preference, we can still drink beer together.

5. I don’t shoot moose.

No, wait, that’s not a rule. It’s just a fact.

So? You in? I’ll keep this entry as a sticky for two weeks. I’ll add my own discussion in the comments section as I get information. Feel free to post on your own site (Sign the linky!) or post in the comments here. My goal: I’m challenging myself to have an intelligent conversation with my husband and also you, my friends, (Yes, yes, I heard it.) that doesn’t end up in cussing and saying things like, “Um. BECAUSE.” Because.

I am nothing if not honest Oct 16, 2008

*Excuse the stream of consciousness here, but I’m going to write and then get started on work. I think I need to put This Stuff Down so I can take it out of my brain and focus on other things that make people happy like CLEAN CODE and NAVIGATIONS THAT WORK and CSS VALIDATION. So, sorry ahead of time for the lack of editing. It’s been a long night. Also, please note: I am not going crazy or super depressed. I’m frustrated. I’m tired. I’d like to use a lot of eff words. I know you understand. Thank you.

Tomorrow my daughter turns four years old. This marks, for me, a very important day. It’s the day she turns in to My Favorite Age. It’s the day she is no longer a toddler but a child. It’s the day she becomes human enough to reason with.

Or, at least, that’s what I thought before having children.

The last few months have been hard. The last few weeks have been harder. The last few days have been hell.

There is a huge gaping cavern between where my daughter stands and where I live. Logic. Perspective. Common Sense. These are attributes I’ve spent nearly 33 years cultivating. She’s spent four years defying them.

I know four year old’s shouldn’t be expected to reason. I know they don’t get common sense. I know they don’t understand The Big Picture. But people, they SHOULD understand where the toilet is and how to get there in time to piddle. They SHOULD understand when mommy says to “put on your shoes” she does not mean “bug your brother, then throw a fit at the top of the stairs, pick some lint, get out a few dolls, whine about something, throw another fit, look for the toy you lost 11 months ago and turn on the TV.”

All I want is for her to put on her fucking shoes.

I understand that a four year old won’t get that it’s raining outside and the longer she doddles in the car, Mom gets drenched. I know she doesn’t get that money doesn’t grow on trees and that I have to work if she wants that Pink! Sparkle! Bedroom! All! Of! Her! Own! (good luck with that one, kid) But I do think she can understand that we all do things we don’t want to sometimes and it’s OK to not love EVERY FUCKING MINUTE of my day but that over all life isn’t that bad.

Unless you fall and scrape your knee, that is.

Then HOLY FUCK BATMAN.

MY KNEEE.

I SCRAPED MY KNEE.

:: flail like a fish out of water here and throw yourself on the ground increasing screaming pitch until only dogs in Holland can here you ::

It’s exhausting in a way I can not explain, the training up of this child. The increasing difficulty in which she exists is making trading in this version for a four legged hound that licks his ass sound pretty appealing. It makes taking a 16 month old who craps himself, throws fits and scream in public easy. At least HE is 16 months old, not The Human Age Of Four.

I’ve been reflecting on my own childhood as she nears my age of remembrance. I remember doing fun things like carving pumpkins and having sleep overs. I remember watching, with disgust, as my childhood best friend would throw a fit because she couldn’t get her tights on over her sticky humid-ridden legs before Ballet. I remember thinking my 5 year old friend sure did over-react a lot.

I was five and I Got It.

She’s Four.

Comon.

I think of things the Catholic Priests of my childhood would be proud of. GUILT! It’s ALL MY FAULT! I’m a horrible mother. I work too much. I don’t spend enough time with her. I don’t feel connected with her because I had PPD and couldn’t form that bond with her as an infant.

I pack on so much guilt I contemplate staying home and just Being There For Her.

Then I look around for a fork to shove in to my eye because WHAT THE FUCK.

I must be on crack.

So I go to work and I focus on things like making people happy because SOMETIMES work actually works and people are happy! They don’t throw a fit! My clients? They understand reason, logic and perspective.

I wonder out loud if I was cut out for this Mom gig. Then I wonder what kind of a God would fuck with me like this because HAHAHAHAAAA (fingers pointing down from heaven) take challenging intelligent child and turn her in to someone that can contribute to society! I DARE YOU.

Then I get struck by lightening.

ouch.

I guess, here on the eve of her fourth birthday, I can’t help but wonder where I went wrong. If I went wrong. Why I went wrong. And if I can fix it. Or if our relationship will always be this jagged, this hard, this challenging.

I cry a little at that thought. I cry because I want a better relationship with my daughter. I cry because I’m not really sure that I can do it alone. I need her to try, too.

But she’s only four.

Not even four.

Tomorrow, she is four.

I can not believe the years flying by. Please make them stop so I can figure this all out? Because before I know it? She’ll be 14. And I’ll wonder why she stands on the other side of the gaping cavern where logic and time and common sense do not exist.

My only hope is that I can stand there with her. I know she’ll need me.

I know I need her.

Probably the first post wherein I DO NOT pee on a stick. BEHOLD, INTERNET. (All caps!) Oct 13, 2008

Hi Internet. It’s been too long. Too long since I came here with a pee stick clutched in my fist shaking my head in disbelief. Too long since I peed on my secret stash of tests. Too long since I groped by boobs and came here saying, “Dude, they are like MELONS.”

It’s an obsession I happily traded for red wine and compulsive furniture re-arrangement. I happily fled the “Am I? Aren’t I?” with the one joyous side effect of BORN AGAIN VIRGIN 2008.

I mean, hey, it saves money, right?

So, in a quest to get my libido back again (nothing says “down boy” like a raging overy and a screaming toddler) I decided to take up Someone’s Advice and try out Yaz. I mean it couldn’t be all that bad, right? Birth Control? THE PILL? Joslyn swore it did wonders for her face (no more blemishes!) and she lost weight on it. She pretty much had me at “you won’t get pregnant taking this tiny pill once a day.” The other stuff was all a bonus.

I started The Pill about a week ago. Then The Flu hit our house. And I’ve been nauseated. So nauseated. Or am I sick? Or am I pregnant? HAHA. Just kidding about that last one. Hold-over from obsessions of yore. (I’ll confess, if we’d actually DONE “IT” any time this month, I’d been groping my own self in public and analyzing my nipples. “Dark? Light? Prego? Not prego?” so don’t let me get all “I don’t even own a pregnancy test anymore haha suckah!” on you. It’s a farce.)

So I look up birth control side effects and somewhere between the “YE MAY DIE OF HEART COMPLICATIONS” and “TWO HEADED MONSTERS WILL COME OUT YOUR VAJAYJAY IF YOU USE THIS IS A FORM OF ABORTION” it reads, “Also may cause Nausea for the first few cycles.”

Which, hai, is pretty much what I was hoping to avoid, what the first 18 weeks of puking and all from two pregnancies.

Oh, also, the cost of college and formula. Not in that order.

So, this is all one long winded way of asking you: Do you take THE PILL, have you taken THE PILL and did it make you want to hurl THE WINE on your green puke-colored (which you only are just now noticing is SO totally puke colored) couch?

Because this lady looks pretty happy on Yaz.

Of course, she probably doesn’t even take it. False advertising. There’s no way my hair will look like that after yaz.

Potty Mouth Oct 12, 2008

My daughter talks. She talks. And talks. And talks. A few days ago we challenged her to be quiet for five minutes. “Just FIVE minutes. I’ll buy you a pony!” the mister bribed.

She failed at 2 minutes 5 seconds.

She talks through everything: coloring, playing with her mice. (Oh, yes! she has invisible mice! You know? Like Cinderella? Or the crazy cat lady in the psych ward?) She talks about her friends. She talks so much she even narrates her poop.

The other day I was standing there waiting for my daughter to pinch off a tootsie roll listening to her talk. “Oh, my poop hurts, Mom. It makes my bottom HUURRRRTTTTT OWE OWE OWE.” (I use this time to talk about Fiber, the importance of eating your veggies at dinner and fruit for snacks instead of crackers. Oh, that’s right, there is no sacred moment I will not use for my own mothering.) She continues, “Sometimes I pee when I poop. Sometimes I just poop. Today I’m just going to poop.”

I glance around the empty bathroom and check my watch.

“Are you done now, sweetie?” I ask.

“No. I have this much more” she holds up her hands showing me a little space. “Like my mice are this big? I have that much more poop in my tummy.”

“MhmMM”

“Sometimes my mice go poop in the big toilet. Sometimes they go in the little toilet.”

“MmhmmM”

“Sometimes when I poop a big one, it splashes my bottom with the water.”

I. Give. Up. Oct 06, 2008

The mouthiness, the arguing, the smarting-off combined with a child who STILL PEES HERSELF several times A DAY is giving me more gray hair, more crazy bags.

She’s four and I already don’t know what to do with her.

I want to tell you all about this weekend and how we had a lovely girl’s night at a Casino and how we have wonderful plans for more photos, more reviews, more podcasts. I want to post those pictures of the leisure Olympics. I want to tell you that I get to meet one of my clients IN PERSON today. I want to tell you how my son is turning in to a little boy (A REAL BOY!) and how my daughter loves to quantify her love. “I love you four thousand!” she yells from upstairs during the eye of the storm. I want to tell you all these fun and wonderful things happening and instead all I can think of is this:

I. Give. Up.

She’s four. She starts the day with, “But I don’t WANNA” and ends it with “NOOooOOOOOO. You are MEAN” and I’m so tired of it. So very very tired.

I’m tired six thousand.

But I love her seven thousand.

And she loves me eight.

Show your teenagers this video, then go put on makeup Oct 03, 2008

After two hours of total meltdown, I made this video.

After two minutes, you might wonder who had the actual meltdown.

And it’ll be obvious who needs cover-up.

Come one, come all, show your tweens, teens and husbands: The Birth Control known as ....

TOTAL MELTDOWN 2008:

Hi

7 guests here now.

Coming Up

So, I'm working on this Hall of Fame and I'll put the link here. One of these days. SOON! No, really, I swear-ish.

Also, totally working on my links to other friends, speaking events, and probably photos. PHOTOS! I know, right?